Israel will assassinate Hamas leaders if kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is not returned, according to Hamas sources in Israel.

Sources leaked the information to the Arabic London daily paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi on Thursday. The source continued, saying that Egypt asked Hamas to carry out serious negotiations with Israel in order to reach a swap deal within a month's time.

In response to the issue spokesperson of Al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said that if the Salit file is not closed soon, it will turn into a second case like that of Ron Arad.

Arad was an Israeli soldier captured in 1986 by Hizbullah forces in Lebanon. Negotiations for his release failed in the late 1980s. Little was heard about Arad during the 1990s and early 2000s, though current reports say that he was either lost or has died. During the 16 July prisoner swap, photos and a journal belonging to Arad were handed over to Israel. Hizbullah says that Arad is dead and that they do not know where his remains are.

The Al-Quds Al-Arabi report and the Al-Qassam comments came within days of reports of a training camp for Hamas' military wings in the south end of the Gaza strip. During the camp it was said that abducting Israeli soldiers is the only way to guarantee the release of all Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli authorities on Wednesday blocked the construction of a road in the West Bank village of Al-Walaja on the grounds that the land is claimed by the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem.

The road leads to what is said to be the oldest olive tree in the world, an international tourist attraction.

Israeli border police and representatives of Interior Ministry raided the village, detained the bulldozer operator and threatened the other construction workers with arrest is they continue work on the road, said Sa'id Abu Ali Al-Walaja's agricultural charitable association.

The village's municipal council and the charitable association wanted to improve the route to the olive tree, Abu Ali said. The project was funded by the Italian government.

The Governor of Bethlehem, Salah At-Ta'mari, condemned the Israeli decision, saying that it reflects Israel's lack of desire for peace. Ta'amari noted that Israel has previously confiscated land in the village, part of a larger Israeli plan to consolidate control around what it claims as "greater Jerusalem."

At-Ta'mari urged the US and EU to end their "shy condemnations" of Israel's practices, saying that Palestinians are losing faith in the peace process due to events on the ground.

Al-Walaja lies on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, near the Green Line. Following its 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem, Israel unilaterally expanded the boundaries of its Jerusalem municipality, swallowing East Jerusalem and a number of West Bank villages, including much of Al-Walaja. The international community does not recognize the Israeli claim to the area.

Israeli troops forced their way into houses in the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya during a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday, witnesses said.

Local sources said that seven military vehicles stormed the town at 3am and ransacked houses in western neighborhood of the town, forcing sleeping civilians into the street.

The sources added that Israeli troops spread out through the town, shooting their weapons. No one was arrested.

Security sources said that Israeli forces sat up a military checkpoint on the road connecting Qabatiya and the neighboring village of Misliyam, where they inspected identity cards and searched vehicles.

Israeli forces also stormed the city and refugee camp of Tulkarem late on Monday night and raided the Mas'oud De'bas fertilizers and medicine company, and raided the houses of residents Afif Jallad, Khaled Nimer and Majed Dalbah.

Tulkarem residents reported that the Israeli troops damaged their property, but no one was arrested.

The eight-week old truce with Israel has failed to achieve the minimum expectations of the Palestinians, the spokesperson of one of the armed Palestinian factions in Gaza said on Tuesday.

The official spokesperson of National Resistance Brigades, the armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) Abu Salim, says that "ongoing, daily and frequent Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank," and the continued closure of Gaza's borders mean that Israel has failed to meet the minimum conditions of the agreement.

"The truce started to be a burden," he said.

"The resistance factions have to reevaluate their attitude regarding the fragile truce that serves Israeli policy at first," he added.

Abu Salim's remarks are the latest signs of dissatisfaction among some of the Palestinian factions signed onto the ceasefire. Islamic Jihad leaders have also expressed disappointment, although the ruling Hamas movement remains committed to the truce.

Israel is winning "collective gains" from the ceasefire with Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, the most significant of which is border security and maintaining the inter-Palestinian rivalry, Islamic Jihad leader Ibrahim An-Najjar said on Monday.

In a press release, An-Najjar expressed his hope that Palestinian resistance factions will soon reconsider the "humiliating" ceasefire. He said "resistance must be reactivated" as it is the "sole card in the hands of the Palestinian people," he explained. An-Najjar also highlighted that "the Israeli occupation understands only the language of force."

Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, including Islamic Jihad, began a cesefire on 19 June. Since then Palestinian homemade rocket attacks and Israeli incursions in Gaza have all but stopped, but Israel has failed to lift its crippling blockade of the Strip as it pledged in the ceasefire agreement.

The Islamic Jihad leader criticized Palestinian factions for what he called "iron commitment" to the ceasefire while Israel reneges on its pledges. He referred to Palestinian reactions towards Israeli claims that Palestinian factions were violating ceasefire. He described those Palestinians who approved Israeli claims as "fishing in troubled waters."

With regards to the Palestinian approach to the conflict, An-Najjar talked about two approaches; resistance and the Palestinian Authority (PA). He asserted that his movement stands in the heart of the resistance approach, as the PA's strategy of negotiations is fruitless. "We do not believe that both approaches could be combined," he added.

An-Najjar also reiterated the necessity to resume national Palestinian dialogue which should not be limited to Fatah and Hamas, because the two faction the cause of the crisis.

A group of Palestinians successfully blocked Israeli settlers from occupying the home of Baha' Addin Darwish in the town of Beit Safafa, south of Jerusalem, on Sunday evening.

Last week, the settlers attempted to occupy the house with furniture and religious books, but Palestinian residents sent them away.

Hatim Abdul-Qadir, the Palestinian prime minister's advisor on Jerusalem affairs, visited the house and described the settlers' actions "burglary and vandalism." He warned Israeli police against allowing settlers to invade the house again.

The house is near the settlement of Gilo, and within Israeli-occupied and annexed East Jerusalem. The residents of Beit Safafa possess the Israeli-issued Jerusalem ID for Palestinians.

Dozens of civilians choked on tear gas Sunday when Israeli forces dispersed a peaceful protest that began in the town of Ni'lin north of Ramallah.

The protest was organized by the Ni'lin Committee Against the wall. The committee called for demonstrators to gather in the center of the town and move as a group towards the construction site of the Israeli separation wall, which cuts off the residents of the town from their ancestral land.

The day of the protest construction on the separation wall was ongoing. Bulldozers were digging a path for the wall, and Israeli soldiers stood guard at the ready for protesters.

The group went to the southern end of the construction site, where they stood in the way of the construction equipment in order to delay the creation of the wall on their lands. The main tactic of the group was to stand in the way of the bulldozers, thus preventing the first stage of the building.

Clashes ensued between soldiers and protesters, and ended when soldiers threw canisters of tear gas at the group, causing several to choke on the noxious fumes.

Israeli forces stormed the village of Silat Adh-Dhahr in south west Jenin on Sunday morning along with villages of Ti'nnik and Zububa north west of the city where the patrols searched agricultural lands.

The villages are clustered in the northern most point of the West Bank, near Israel's Salem military training compound. Last week several dunums of agricultural land and olive groves were destroyed to enlarge the area.

Palestinian sources say that Israeli forces stormed the village of Zububa at 2:30am Sunday morning and searched agricultural lands near the separation wall.

In Silat Adh-Dhahr and Ti'nnik, Israeli patrols marched the streets with no detentions reported.

Eyewitnesses in Ya'bad, a town south west of Jenin, said that Israeli forces patrolled As-Sahel road. The eyewitness heard shots fired and faint voices through loudspeakers.

Israeli soldiers attacked an anti wall demonstration west of the town of Dir Al- Ghusun in the northern West Bank on Saturday.

Israeli soldiers detained three demonstrators, and attacked and beat several others including local journalists. Protesters chanted angry slogans denouncing Israeli actions that are against international law.

The demonstration was organized by the Popular Struggle Front (PSF) and was attended by leaders of the National Action committee, international peace activists, residents of the town, a deputy of the local governor, Jamal Sa'eed; the head of the municipal council of the town A'hed Zanabeet; Sa'el Khalil, coordinator of the national factions and Hakam Taleb, member of the politburo office of the PSF.

In marking the 29th anniversary of the 21 August 1969 burning of the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islamic Jihad leader Ibrahim An-Najjar questioned current excavations carried out by Israel beneath the Mughrabi Gate ramp near the Western Wall and the Noble Sanctuary (Haram Al-Sharif) compound.

An Australian Christian extremist hoping to hurry the coming of the messiah was actually responsible for the arson in the mosque in 1969, but widespread fears that Israel would destroy the area after taking over East Jerusalem in 1967 trumped the truth.

Since Israel had razed the Mughrabi Quarter - an 800 year old neighbourhood that stood where the Western Wall compound now is - when they took control over the area in 1967, Palestinians had ample grounds for mistrust as to how the holy area would be treated. When the mosque was burned two years later, popular imagination held Israel responsible for the attack.

In his statement to Ma'an on Saturday morning, An-Nijjar said that current excavations near the Western Wall and beneath the Noble Sanctuary compound risk damaging the area and cracking the walls that hold up the holy Muslim sites.

An-Najjar told Ma'an that Arab and Islamic crowds must rise to protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the place from which Prophet Muhammad started his journey to the heavens [It says in the Qur'an that the Prophet Muhammad traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem overnight on a magic horse Al-Barack, from where he was taken to heaven before coming back to earth]. "Thousands of Palestinian and Arab people," continued An-Najjar, "are ready to sacrifice their lives to rescue the holy mosque."

An-Najjar also called on Palestinian resistance factions to make every possible effort to protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque, since Israel is taking advantage of factional disagreements to continue their excavations under the area without interventions.

The crisis unit created to respond to Israeli truce violations in Gaza announced that it will continue to abide by the terms of the truce, but requests that Egypt pressure Israel to do the same so the siege on Gaza can finally end.

Daoud Shihab, the spokesperson of Islamic Jihad said on Friday that Palestinian factions met as the crisis unit to assess the two month long truce agreement between Hamas and Israel on Thursday.

He added in statements to the Egyptian News Agency Al- Sharq Al- Awsat in Gaza that the discussions of the crisis unit are unified and all factions hope "Israel will fulfill its commitments towards the truce."

Leaders of the crisis unit will head to Egypt this week to address the issue with leaders involved in brokering the original deal. "We have a great hope," said Shihab, "that since Egypt has a great role in the region and in the World it will be able to force Israel to comply with what has been agreed."

Without an Israeli agreement to adhere to the terms of the ceasefure, he said, the Palestinian factions are agreed that the truce is useless, "despite of the fact that all of the factions did not violate the truce and Israel continued with its crimes and attacks against the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."

Salah Al-Bardaweel, a Palestinian Legislative Council member for theHamas bloc and a party leader said that among the issues discussed in the meeting was that of giving a chance to Egypt to salvage the truce agreement.

He added that "it is affirmed that no party should violate the truce on its own. A unified decision of voiding the truce should be taken unanimously by all factions."

Concerning the Palestinian dialogue, Bardaweel said that "we in the Hamas movement and as PLC members do not mind dialogue whenever it is serious in ending the division among Palestinians."

Four internationals and a Palestinian child were among those injured in the Bi'lin protest on Friday afternoon.

This week's protest was staged as a sports day that included dozens of children's soccer teams, which came to play on the Bi'lin village field.

The day was organized by the Popular Campaign Against the Wall, and the village sports clubs under the slogan of "no for the wall, no for the construction of the settlement."

A delegation of supporters from the group "the generations of Palestine" visited the village for the sports day, and watched a movie on the village's experiment with popular struggle. Members of the Popular Committee presented a full explanation of the project of the village, then took the visitors to the site of the wall, which prevents local farmers from reaching their land.

Israeli troops attacked the protesters by shooting tear gas canisters, rubber-coated steel bullets, sound grenades and water polluted with animal manure and chemicals, preventing them from reaching the wall.

Fifteen-year-old Amjad Abu Rahmah and four international activists were moderately injured after being hit with rubber coated steel bullets.

Dozens of residents of the village of Al-Ma'sara south of Bethlehem were attacked with Israeli sound bombs, clubs and rifle butts as they tried to reach their protest site outside of Bethlehem.

The group of Palestinians, Israelis and international activists were surprised to find the route to the construction site of the separation wall, where they hold regular non-violent protests, blocked with barbed wire and dozens of Israeli soldiers.

After trying to continue towards the wall several protesters were lightly injured as Israeli troops stopped them from moving forward.

The protest was held where the road was blocked, and three different speeches were given.

The spokesperson of the popular anti-wall committee in Bethlehem Muhammad Breijiyya gave the first speech, which focused on the recent death of Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish who was the writer of the Palestinian struggle.

A second speech was delivered in English by local leader Mahmoud Zawahra, who urged foreign solidarity activists to continue partaking in popular activities in Palestine, saying that he believed their participation will lead eventually to a Palestinian triumph over occupation.

Representative of the Bethlehem anti-wall campaign Mazin Al-Azzah delivered the last speech, here he thanked all who participated, and promised the peaceful protests would continue.

The Al-Ma'sara protest was organized by the Palestinian popular campaign and national anti-wall committee. Protests are held weekly where dozens of local residents along with foreign and Israeli solidarity activists gather and try to reach fields where the wall is being constructed.

Israeli humanitarian organization Yesh Din released several short videos on Thursday that recorded Israeli border guards abusing and humiliating Palestinians from Jerusalem.

The videos were all recorded on cell phone cameras between 2007 and August 2008.

In one of the short films, an armed Israeli soldier beats a group of Palestinian detainees, while another video shows a soldier forcing a Palestinian to perform a military salutation before him.

According to Yesh Din, the videos were recovered from a cellular phone that they say belonged to an Israeli soldier. The group said that a passerby found the phone and decided to hand to Yesh Din after he saw the videos.

Yesh Din representatives went to military police and demanded that the videos be examined to determine their validity. If the videos are what they appear to be, said the group, than the soldiers who appear on the video should be held accountable for their actions.

Two young Palestinian men turned themselves in to Israeli soldiers on Thursday evening after their families received assassination threats from the Israeli intelligence.

The two men from Nablus went to the Huwwara checkpoint, about five kilometers outside of the city. The checkpoint one of the most notorious in the West Bank and effectively cuts off Nablus from the cities to the south; men often stand in line for hours waiting to pass through, and cars without an Israeli license plate are not allowed to pass.

Wijdan Sarawi, a former Palestinian woman prisoner told Ma'an's reporter that her son 18-year-old Hamzah Sarawi and his friend 18-year-old Imad Darwish turned themselves over to Israeli forces. She explained that Israeli troops stormed her family house in Nablus on Wednesday morning, inspected the house and damaging parts of its interior under the pretext of looking for her son Hamzah, who was not at home.

Sarawi added that Israeli intelligence telephoned the family dozens of times telling them that if Hamzah and his neighbor Imad Darwish do not turn themselves over, an undercover Israeli force would assassinate both of them.

Hamzah will be the second of Sarawi's sons to be detained by Israeli forces. Hamzah's elder brother Sami is serving a five year term in an Israeli detention center.

Visits to Israeli prisons reveal unlawful and arbitrary practices, said the head of the Prisoners' Society in Jenin, Raghib Abu Dyak.

Reporting on conditions in the Jalama detention center north of Jenin, the Salem detention center north west of Jenin, as well as prisons in Ashkelon, and Nafha prison on the outskirts of the Negev town of Mitzpe Ramon, Dyak related visiting lawyers' observations.

In Jalama, an Israeli military court extended the detention periods of ten Palestinians from eight to 25 days during a hearing of the court on Thursday.

Anan Khader, one of the society's lawyers, visited 38 new detainees at Salem detention center. It was reported that detainees reported being handcuffed and blindfolded, and many had their noses held shut to prevent them from breathing. Dyak highlighted that this practice is against humanitarian laws.

Hassan Uweis, another lawyer for the society, visited Nafha prison, and reported that Palestinian detainees there expressed great resentment about being transferred so far away from their families.

At the Shikma prison in Ashkelon, Fahmi Eweiwi, a third lawyer for the society, visited Tawfiq Rabay'a. He reported that despite the continued separation of Fatah and Hamas prisoners, Palestinians are working together and support efforts of national unity.

Those in Jalama whose terms of detention were extended were: Qassem Ragheb As-Sa'di for eight days until 19 August, Bilal Usama Sbeih for fourteen days until 25 August, Yousef Ali Asa'sa for eight days until 19 August, Mohammad Abdel Ghani Abu Qandileh for fourteen days until 25 August, Wa'el Adel Abu Hatab for fifteen days until 26 August, Zakaria Mohammad Maloul for eight days until 19 August, Tamer Jalal Al-Qash for eight days until 19 August, Baker Mohammad Maloul for fifteen days until 26 August, Nader Nabil Abu Ubeid for fifteen days until 26 August and Majdi Jihad Ayyash for fifteen days until 26 August.

Israeli military bulldozers uprooted olive trees and tilled-under agricultural land between the military camp of Salem and Rummana village at the northern tip of the West Bank on Thursday.

The lands were confiscated on Tuesday.

One of the owners of the confiscated and now destroyed land Mahmoud Taher Bushnaq said that Israeli forces issued a decision two days ago to confiscate the land and to uproot the olive trees.

"I thought that the bulldozers came to the lands to provide enough space for the troops to train and have their exercises because our land lies along the camp," Bushnaq explained.

He also said that he hoped to object to the confiscation order and bring the issue to court. "They did not give me any time," he said. "They rapidly implemented their confiscation and destruction plan."

Seven Palestinians including two young boys were detained early Thursday morning during an Israeli raid at Ad-Duheisha camp south of Bethlehem.

The two young boys were also injured during the raid, when Israeli solders fired live bullets into the air.

Palestinian security sources reported to Ma'an that Israeli forces detained two young boys, Hamada As-Salihi and Hamdi Al-Atrash after they were injured with Israeli bullets during clashes at the camp following the Israeli invasion.

Also detained were 30-year-old Muhammad Yahya Al-Qassas, 32-year-old Adnan Naim Al-Qabu, 27-year-old Mohamed Hussein Al Najjar as well as Wael Khalil 'Atallah, and Ra'fat Abu 'Akr. All of the men were affiliated with the Popular front for the Liberation of Palestine, a leftist party with a military wing.

Brothers arrested as Israeli forces impose a military closure on the village of Beita south of Nablus.

Local Palestinian sources told Ma'an that dozens of Israeli soldiers stormed Beita, and erected several checkpoints at the enterance to the village and its western access point. The soldiers declared a military closure of the area.

Those arrested were Waddah Khalid Dweikat who is 21-years-old and a student at An-Najah University, along with his older brother Nazim Dweikat, who is 23-years-old and a student at Al-Quds Open University.

The Palestinian minister of Waqf (Endowment) and Religious Affairs, Jamal Bawatnah on Tuesday condemned the frequent assaults by Israeli settlers which culminated in an attempt to set fire to the Ar-Ras Mosque in eastern Hebron in the southern West Bank.

Extremist settlers threw garbage at the entrance to the mosque and they attacked employees and foreign solidarity activists as well as members of Temporary International Presence Hebron (TIPH) and UN employees.

Bawatnah called on Palestinian civil society institutions to counter assaults against holy places. He described such attacks "dangerous" and "barbarian."

He added that 'Israeli barbarism' would not have continued had Arab and other states not remained silent. He appealed to all Arab and international organizations to take immediate steps to stop the attacks on places of worship in Hebron and other Palestinian areas, especially Jerusalem.

The minister also highlighted that Israel plans to build a synagogue and a bridges at the Mughrebi Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem, which he said could be used by Israeli police and border guards to ransack the Al-Aqsa Mosque.